Sverker Finnström
Biographic Data
| ID | 75307 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sverker Finnström |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sverker |
| FAMILY NAME | Finnström |
| SIGNATURE | FINNSTRÖM S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5835-1706 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
When the World Is Not Directly Given to Us
Concerning Violence
War, Technology, Anthropology
Technologies of the allied warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as remote-controlled drones and night vision goggles, allow the user to “virtualize” human targets. This coincides with increased civilian casualties and a perpetuation of the very insecurity these technologies are meant to combat. This concise volume of research and reflections from different regions across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, observes how anthropology…
Introduction
This book was inspired by a number of considerations: the limits of ethnographic participation in war zones, the way in which the imaginary becomes significant in creating meaning in the chaotic context of war zones, and how a space of virtual conflict and war emerges from these conjunctions. Such a virtual space is not separate from the physical battlefield, although for most Euro-Americans the battles are something “out there” in the presumably…
Chapter 7. Reconciliation Grown Bitter
Brokers and Breakers of War Stories in Acholiland, Northern Uganda
This article describes the tension that built up between two European journalists who had teamed up to shoot a documentary on the entanglement of war and humanitarian interventions in Acholiland, northern Uganda, with the fieldworking anthropologist as the local broker of the documentary project. The article also examines a parallel disconnect developing between the journalists and the Ugandans they encountered. From the perspective of the broker…
War
War Stories and Troubled Peace
Many aspects of war are deliberately kept secret, but some are so mundane that they simply are not reflected upon. In the face of the brutal mass violence of most wars today, these mundane secrets are not spectacular enough to capture media attention or the observers' imaginations. They are, in a sense, the unmarked secrets of everyday war. In this article, I address such unmarked secrets of war. Focusing on war-torn northern Uganda, I follow two…
Disillusion, Embodiment and Violent Reconciliations
Today He Is No More
In this article, I revisit a few months of intensive fieldwork conducted in late 2005. This fieldwork spell was part of a much longer engagement with war-torn Acholiland in northern Uganda starting in 1997 and still ongoing. But back in 2005, I could follow closely the unfolding of local news as the International Criminal Court (ICC) unsealed its arrest warrants for the leaders of the globally infamous Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA). From …
Virtual War and Magical Death
This book was inspired by a number of considerations: the limits of ethnographic participation in war zones, the way in which the imaginary becomes significant in creating meaning in the chaotic context of war zones, and how a space of virtual conflict and war emerges from these conjunctions.Such a virtual space is not separate from the physical battlefield, although for most Euro-Americans the battles are something "out there" in the presumably …
Kony 2012, Military Humanitarianism, and the Magic of Occult Economies
The global success of the film KONY 2012 by Invisible Children, Inc., manifests far greater magical powers than those of Joseph Kony and his ruthless Lord's Resistance Army, which it portrays. The most prominent feature of the Invisible Children lobby is the making and constant remaking of a master narrative that depoliticizes and dehistoricizes a murky reality of globalized war into an essentialized black-and-white story. The magic of such a dig…
Fictions of Justice
Political bodies, local realities and institutional structures of (in-)justice
Review essay of Judith Butler’s Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (Verso, 2009), Paul Ricoeur’s The Just (Chicago UP, 2000), and Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice (Harvard UP, 2009)
Pillars of the Nation
Crisis of the State
Gendered War and Rumors of Saddam Hussein in Uganda
This article discusses the role of rumors in everyday Acholi life in war‐torn northern Uganda. These rumors concern various health threats such as HIV and Ebola. The rumors are closely associated with the forces of domination that are alleged to destroy female sexuality and women's reproductive health and, by extension, Acholi humanity. Moreover, the rumors are stories that say something profound about lived entrapments and political asymmetries …
Culture in Chaos
Living with Bad Surroundings
An African hell of colonial imagination
La Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) est désormais mondialement connue pour sa violence. La plupart des observateurs, y compris universitaires, ont rejeté la LRA/M sur des bases morales, et l’ont aussi disqualifiée en la présentant comme non politique, et en insistant sur le fait que ses membres n’avaient pour cause que des croyances syncrétiques « étranges ». Cet article propose une direction sinon alternative, du moins complémentaire à ce…
An African hell of colonial imagination
La Lord's Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) est désormais mondialement connue pour sa violence. La plupart des observateurs, y compris universitaires, ont rejeté la LRA/M sur des bases morales, et l'ont aussi disqualifiée en la présentant comme non politique, et en insistant sur le fait que ses membres n'avaient pour cause que des croyances syncrétiques « étranges ». Cet article propose une direction sinon alternative, du moins complémentaire à ce…
Terror and Violence
Book Review| October 01 2007 Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable; Violence Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable. Edited by Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart, and Neil L. Whitehead (Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto, 2006. viii + 250 pp., introduction, bibliographies, index. $95.00 cloth, $28.95 paper.)Violence. Edited by Neil L. Whitehead (Santa Fe, NM, and Oxford, UK: School of American Research Press and James Currey, 20…
Wars of the Past and War in the Present
War has ravaged Acholiland in northern Uganda since 1986. The Ugandan army is fighting the Lord's ResistanceMovement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article aims at exemplifying the ways in which non-combatant people's experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping, and it relates tales of wars in the past to experiences of violent death and war in the present. There has…
Survival in war-torn Uganda
Shadows of War
Review of Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)
Virtual War and Magical Death
This book was inspired by a number of considerations: the limits of ethnographic participation in war zones, the way in which the imaginary becomes significant in creating meaning in the chaotic context of war zones, and how a space of virtual conflict and war emerges from these conjunctions.Such a virtual space is not separate from the physical battlefield, although for most Euro-Americans the battles are something "out there" in the presumably …
Wars of the Past and War in the Present
War has ravaged Acholiland in northern Uganda since 1986. The Ugandan army is fighting the Lord's ResistanceMovement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article aims at exemplifying the ways in which non-combatant people's experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping, and it relates tales of wars in the past to experiences of violent death and war in the present. There has…
Kony 2012, Military Humanitarianism, and the Magic of Occult Economies
The global success of the film KONY 2012 by Invisible Children, Inc., manifests far greater magical powers than those of Joseph Kony and his ruthless Lord's Resistance Army, which it portrays. The most prominent feature of the Invisible Children lobby is the making and constant remaking of a master narrative that depoliticizes and dehistoricizes a murky reality of globalized war into an essentialized black-and-white story. The magic of such a dig…
War Stories and Troubled Peace
Many aspects of war are deliberately kept secret, but some are so mundane that they simply are not reflected upon. In the face of the brutal mass violence of most wars today, these mundane secrets are not spectacular enough to capture media attention or the observers' imaginations. They are, in a sense, the unmarked secrets of everyday war. In this article, I address such unmarked secrets of war. Focusing on war-torn northern Uganda, I follow two…
In and Out of Culture
This article aims at exemplifying war's violation of cosmologies as well as of people, and the ways in which experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping. I argue that the diverging experiences of the anthropologist, and of her/his assistants and informants, can fruitfully be communicated through an intercultural understanding of the conflict at issue, and of its local implications. Such a communi…
Brokers and Breakers of War Stories in Acholiland, Northern Uganda
This article describes the tension that built up between two European journalists who had teamed up to shoot a documentary on the entanglement of war and humanitarian interventions in Acholiland, northern Uganda, with the fieldworking anthropologist as the local broker of the documentary project. The article also examines a parallel disconnect developing between the journalists and the Ugandans they encountered. From the perspective of the broker…
Survival in war-torn Uganda
War, Technology, Anthropology
Technologies of the allied warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as remote-controlled drones and night vision goggles, allow the user to “virtualize” human targets. This coincides with increased civilian casualties and a perpetuation of the very insecurity these technologies are meant to combat. This concise volume of research and reflections from different regions across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, observes how anthropology…
An African hell of colonial imagination
La Lord's Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) est désormais mondialement connue pour sa violence. La plupart des observateurs, y compris universitaires, ont rejeté la LRA/M sur des bases morales, et l'ont aussi disqualifiée en la présentant comme non politique, et en insistant sur le fait que ses membres n'avaient pour cause que des croyances syncrétiques « étranges ». Cet article propose une direction sinon alternative, du moins complémentaire à ce…
In and Out of Culture
This article aims at exemplifying war's violation of cosmologies as well as of people, and the ways in which experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping. I argue that the diverging experiences of the anthropologist, and of her/his assistants and informants, can fruitfully be communicated through an intercultural understanding of the conflict at issue, and of its local implications. Such a communi…
Shadows of War
Review of Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)
Wars of the Past and War in the Present
War has ravaged Acholiland in northern Uganda since 1986. The Ugandan army is fighting the Lord's ResistanceMovement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article aims at exemplifying the ways in which non-combatant people's experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping, and it relates tales of wars in the past to experiences of violent death and war in the present. There has…
Survival in war-torn Uganda
Terror and Violence
Book Review| October 01 2007 Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable; Violence Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable. Edited by Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart, and Neil L. Whitehead (Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto, 2006. viii + 250 pp., introduction, bibliographies, index. $95.00 cloth, $28.95 paper.)Violence. Edited by Neil L. Whitehead (Santa Fe, NM, and Oxford, UK: School of American Research Press and James Currey, 20…
Living with Bad Surroundings
An African hell of colonial imagination
La Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) est désormais mondialement connue pour sa violence. La plupart des observateurs, y compris universitaires, ont rejeté la LRA/M sur des bases morales, et l’ont aussi disqualifiée en la présentant comme non politique, et en insistant sur le fait que ses membres n’avaient pour cause que des croyances syncrétiques « étranges ». Cet article propose une direction sinon alternative, du moins complémentaire à ce…
An African hell of colonial imagination
La Lord's Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) est désormais mondialement connue pour sa violence. La plupart des observateurs, y compris universitaires, ont rejeté la LRA/M sur des bases morales, et l'ont aussi disqualifiée en la présentant comme non politique, et en insistant sur le fait que ses membres n'avaient pour cause que des croyances syncrétiques « étranges ». Cet article propose une direction sinon alternative, du moins complémentaire à ce…
Crisis of the State
Gendered War and Rumors of Saddam Hussein in Uganda
This article discusses the role of rumors in everyday Acholi life in war‐torn northern Uganda. These rumors concern various health threats such as HIV and Ebola. The rumors are closely associated with the forces of domination that are alleged to destroy female sexuality and women's reproductive health and, by extension, Acholi humanity. Moreover, the rumors are stories that say something profound about lived entrapments and political asymmetries …
Culture in Chaos
Political bodies, local realities and institutional structures of (in-)justice
Review essay of Judith Butler’s Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (Verso, 2009), Paul Ricoeur’s The Just (Chicago UP, 2000), and Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice (Harvard UP, 2009)
Pillars of the Nation
Fictions of Justice
Kony 2012, Military Humanitarianism, and the Magic of Occult Economies
The global success of the film KONY 2012 by Invisible Children, Inc., manifests far greater magical powers than those of Joseph Kony and his ruthless Lord's Resistance Army, which it portrays. The most prominent feature of the Invisible Children lobby is the making and constant remaking of a master narrative that depoliticizes and dehistoricizes a murky reality of globalized war into an essentialized black-and-white story. The magic of such a dig…
Today He Is No More
In this article, I revisit a few months of intensive fieldwork conducted in late 2005. This fieldwork spell was part of a much longer engagement with war-torn Acholiland in northern Uganda starting in 1997 and still ongoing. But back in 2005, I could follow closely the unfolding of local news as the International Criminal Court (ICC) unsealed its arrest warrants for the leaders of the globally infamous Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA). From …
Virtual War and Magical Death
This book was inspired by a number of considerations: the limits of ethnographic participation in war zones, the way in which the imaginary becomes significant in creating meaning in the chaotic context of war zones, and how a space of virtual conflict and war emerges from these conjunctions.Such a virtual space is not separate from the physical battlefield, although for most Euro-Americans the battles are something "out there" in the presumably …
Disillusion, Embodiment and Violent Reconciliations
War
War Stories and Troubled Peace
Many aspects of war are deliberately kept secret, but some are so mundane that they simply are not reflected upon. In the face of the brutal mass violence of most wars today, these mundane secrets are not spectacular enough to capture media attention or the observers' imaginations. They are, in a sense, the unmarked secrets of everyday war. In this article, I address such unmarked secrets of war. Focusing on war-torn northern Uganda, I follow two…
Introduction
This book was inspired by a number of considerations: the limits of ethnographic participation in war zones, the way in which the imaginary becomes significant in creating meaning in the chaotic context of war zones, and how a space of virtual conflict and war emerges from these conjunctions. Such a virtual space is not separate from the physical battlefield, although for most Euro-Americans the battles are something “out there” in the presumably…
Chapter 7. Reconciliation Grown Bitter
Brokers and Breakers of War Stories in Acholiland, Northern Uganda
This article describes the tension that built up between two European journalists who had teamed up to shoot a documentary on the entanglement of war and humanitarian interventions in Acholiland, northern Uganda, with the fieldworking anthropologist as the local broker of the documentary project. The article also examines a parallel disconnect developing between the journalists and the Ugandans they encountered. From the perspective of the broker…
War, Technology, Anthropology
Technologies of the allied warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as remote-controlled drones and night vision goggles, allow the user to “virtualize” human targets. This coincides with increased civilian casualties and a perpetuation of the very insecurity these technologies are meant to combat. This concise volume of research and reflections from different regions across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, observes how anthropology…
When the World Is Not Directly Given to Us
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · History (13 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Cambodian History and Society (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Art (6 works) · History (6 works)